


nobody told me it ended

by WreakingHavok



Series: DreamSMP Canon Studies [5]
Category: DreamSMP
Genre: Creeper Hybrid Sam | Awesamdude, Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Torture, Manipulative Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Nightmares, Sam cares about Tommy, Sam isn’t really okay either let that be known, Sam | Awesamdude-Centric, This is one hundred percent self indulgent, Tommy makes his own love language and it’s called, alright, awesamdad, check the beginning an for warnings, im still just crying over the fact that that’s a tag, no I don’t make the rules, resignation to trauma from said cared about person, thats for the egg scene, tommy wants to care about Sam and shows it in the worst way possible
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29079849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WreakingHavok/pseuds/WreakingHavok
Summary: Sam whines out a breath involuntarily. His head hurts really fucking bad, and the clang of Puffy’s pickaxe only exacerbates the slow spike through his temples.“Samuel,” Tommy mutters. The lines on his face are thrown sharply into shadow by the Egg’s glow, making him all angles and sagging eyes and hollow cheeks. “Fuck.”“It’s gonna be okay, Tommy,” Puffy says. Her voice shakes, regardless.This feels real. It certainly does feel real. And it occurs to Sam that he would really, really like it to be real.~Sam, on rescuing, aftermaths, and TommyInnit.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s), Sam | Awesamdude & Cara | CaptainPuffy, Sam | Awesamdude & TommyInnit, ill literally hunt you down
Series: DreamSMP Canon Studies [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099253
Comments: 52
Kudos: 510
Collections: Completed stories I've read





	nobody told me it ended

**Author's Note:**

> TW: mentions of blood, brief mention of cannibalism, mentions of Hallucinatory Violence but nothing is shown onscreen
> 
> Title from A Pearl by Mitski.

“You dickhead!”

“Tommy! You can’t just, push buttons, you could have died, you know that’s the rule around here -“

Sam feels like shit.

His mouth tastes funny. It’s hard to remember how to move, so he doesn’t, focusing on dragging air in and out of his lungs. It feels like something’s pushing down on his chest, curled around his ribs and crushing him.

Distantly, he registers that the voices echoing down to him seem different than the usual ones. They’re solid, or so they seem. They don’t wind and whisper anymore. The Egg must be learning.

“Well, you should have warned me. I would be a splat on the floor if I had been standing any closer. How’d you like that on your con-see-ense, Captain?”

That voice in particular is harsh and loud. If he had the energy to cover his ears, he would. 

Breathing deep, Sam gathers up what little he can and prepares himself for yet another hallucination. 

“Hello?” he asks. The word sticks uncomfortably in his esophagus and he coughs around it, setting his throat on fire. 

It falls silent above him.

“Sam?”

That sounds like Puffy. 

“Hello,” he croaks, and then because it’s polite, “how are you?”

“Oh, Prime, Sam,” Puffy says. She’s coming from above him, a taunting speck of light making its way into his obsidian cage.

“Fuck, he’s all the way down there?” 

Tommy. Sam shudders, feeling cold, all of a sudden. 

“Hang on, Sam,” Puffy calls. “We’re coming down. Just - just hang on.”

“Okay,” Sam says. 

Slowly, his senses are starting to come back. His skin tingles and crawls all over, and every time he so much as breathes his body flashes with pain. His hair falls into his eyes. Blinking blearily through it, all he can see is red. He smells nothing but blood. He grinds down on what feels like sand and tastes like gunpowder, grains stuck in-between his teeth.

Time doesn’t seem to be working properly. Tommy and Puffy appear in his vision in just a few more seconds, impossibly fast what with all the vines they’d have to pick over. 

“Sam,” Puffy breathes, hands fumbling at her belt for her pickaxe. “Oh, holy shit.” 

Sam just groans. Everything hurts, and it’s just getting worse by the minute, a dull ache pounding through him and into his head.

Tommy’s blue eyes squint at him. “What the fuck happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” With a small grunt, Puffy slams her pick into the chunk of obsidian. 

“Are those teeth marks?” Tommy yelps. “Prime’s sake, what takes a chunk like that out of you?”

Sam follows his gaze to his own arm. Nausea turns in his stomach, but it’s overshadowed by the new, painful awareness of the fact that he is missing most of the skin on top of his left forearm.

“Oh.” Puffy halts her mining, looking at him, slightly horrified.

“I got hungry,” Sam whispers.

Tommy makes a choking noise he can’t decipher. Puffy’s face drains a little more in color. She hides it by chopping off another large hunk of rock. “We - we’re gonna get you out, buddy, okay? Little more, I’m almost through.”

So this is a freedom test. These are rare. Usually the rescuers don’t get this far. 

Sam just settles further into the corner, trying to come to terms with it. Once the Egg figures out that he isn’t going to wrest the tool from Puffy’s hands and send it through her skull - at least, not this time - it will do the job for him and he’ll wake back up in the red, humid dark. Alone.

Sam whines out a breath involuntarily. His head hurts really fucking bad, and the clang of Puffy’s pickaxe only exacerbates the slow spike through his temples. 

His arm isn’t usually torn. Usually, he’s not so afraid.

“Samuel,” Tommy mutters. The lines on his face are thrown sharply into shadow by the Egg’s glow, making him all angles and sagging eyes and hollow cheeks. “Fuck.”

“It’s gonna be okay, Tommy,” Puffy says. Her voice shakes, regardless. 

This feels real. It certainly does feel real. And it occurs to Sam that he would really, really like it to be real. 

“Got it.” Puffy exhales, the last of the obsidian crumbling onto the ground below. “Help him, Tommy.”

Tommy scampers forward, hand outstretched. “Let’s go, big man. Come on.”

Sam stares at his fingers. 

“Sam,” Tommy almost questions, and Sam forces himself to look the boy in the eyes.

“Do you trust me, Tommy?” Sam asks. 

Here’s what’s not new: Tommy doesn’t answer him right away. Tommy’s hand retreats to his chest. Tommy’s eyebrows scrunch up and he gives Sam that wide, glazed stare. 

The silence stretches for longer than it probably is. Sam holds his breath.

Here’s what is new: 

“No,” Tommy says, quiet, but honest. “I don’t think so.”

Sam laughs, then, despite the pain it sends shooting up his spine. Tommy flinches backwards almost imperceptibly. 

“This is real,” Sam wheezes, feeling like he could cry with the realization. 

Tommy gapes like a fish, hands working the seam of his shirt. 

Momentarily invigorated, Sam worms his way out of the cage. He’s unsteady, limbs protesting movement after spending so long cramped in that box.

“Yeah, buddy, it’s real. Promise,” Puffy murmurs. 

He laughs once more and crashes into her side, practically bending in half to bury his face in the crook of her neck. She staggers; Tommy darts to Sam’s other side and pulls his arm over his tense shoulders.

“I want to go home,” Sam declares into Puffy’s hair. 

“Sounds good,” Puffy says. “Move your feet. You can do it. Come on.”

Tommy is uncharacteristically silent. Sam’s arm sluggishly drips blood onto his shirt.

They make their way slowly through the cave, Puffy offering words of encouragement every so often. Sam is larger than both of them by a good margin, so sometimes his feet end up dragging on the ground while Tommy and Puffy struggle to keep him afloat until he gains enough consciousness to stand up again.

“Thanks,” Sam remembers to say a few minutes later. “For saving me.”

It’s Tommy who answers, albeit stunted and jerky. “It’s - I just want Sam Nook back. Don’t take it personally.”

At that reminder, all of his responsibilities drag themselves out of the recesses of his memory to make themselves reknown. The prison, the bank, the - the hotel - 

“I can - you can - I’m sure he’ll, uh, be there when you - uh - need him.” Sam can hear his words slurring together. Embarrassing. 

Puffy snorts. “Yeah. No. Tommy can wait until you - uh, until Sam Nook feels well enough to work.”

“Business waits for no man,” Tommy grumbles. His nails dig into Sam’s hand. Is he worried about something? He shouldn’t be worried. 

The sun beats down on them as they emerge from the tunnels. Sam winces. It makes the ache in his body worse, somehow.

“Can we go home?” Sam asks, feeling pitiful but too tired to help it. 

“Yes,” Puffy reassures him. “Don’t worry. You’re safe, now.”

“Okay,” Sam says, and thinks she has never been more wrong.

~

Much, much later, Sam makes the mistake of falling asleep.

He’s waiting at the construction site for Tommy to come back with more flowers. The afternoon sun beats down, and his safety armor is really making him warm - like a cat in a sunbeam, ironically. 

Sam side-eyes the cat sitting innocently on the beacon. It stares back.

Creepy. Unsettled, Sam looks away, reassured that the cat is doing its job.

A yawn breaks its way out of his chest. Checking his watch, he gives Tommy at least another forty-five minutes before he clears the server of all its poppies. That’s enough time to sit back against the sign and close his eyes. 

He feels much better, now. He feels much better, actually, than he has in a while, if he’s being honest. He feels happy, content, sat at the base of a project he’s had more fun with than any other, in the middle of the day and nothing eating at his head.

It’s nice. 

He isn’t sure how long he lies there before he hears the telltale sound of scuffed footsteps approaching up the path. 

“Sam,” comes Tommy’s voice, sounding vaguely strangled. What problem is it this time?

Sighing, Sam opens his eyes.

Tommy shivers in front of him, Dream’s axe held flush to his neck. The man himself, white mask pulled over his face, stands with one hand in Tommy’s hair and the other curled around the weapon, pulling the boy to his chest with a menacing laugh.

Sam starts to his feet with a shout, fear spiking through him faster than he can really register the situation.

“Uh-uh,” Dream says. He sounds just like Sam remembers, tinny with the undercurrent of a howl through layers of boiling magma. “Don’t move.”

Sam couldn’t even if he wanted to. “How - what -”

“You slacked off,” Dream shrugs. The movement scrapes the axe blade across Tommy’s neck.

“Impossible,” Sam says. “Impossible.”

Tommy’s eyes are wide, hands clawed uselessly into Dream’s arm. “Sam,” he says, an accusation that tears something in Sam’s gut. 

“I’m,” Sam begins, at an awful loss for words. He still can’t move. Why is that? “If you kill him, there will be no one to stop me from killing you.”

Dream hums. “I won’t kill him, Sam. I’m not stupid.”

“Let him go,” Sam says.

Dream laughs. “Sure. I’ll let him go. All you have to do - just do one small, simple thing for me.”

“What,” Sam whispers. His heart is beating into his throat.

“I’m going to put him in the cell,” Dream says casually. “And you aren’t going to let him out or stop me.”

“Fuck you!” Tommy spits, voice cracking. “No, no, fuck you -”

“I can’t,” Sam says helplessly. “I won’t do that.”

“Ten,” Dream says, and his axe draws blood from Tommy’s throat.

“No,” Sam says. “No. Dream, stop.”

“Nine.” 

“You promised you wouldn’t -”

“Eight.”

“Prime,” Sam shouts, struggling to breathe, and his limbs still won’t move, and something whispers in his ears, and he tastes copper and ash and sees red wriggling in his eyes -

“Seven.” 

“Let him go, you sick bastard!”

“Six. Come on, Sam.”

“I won’t! You can’t!”

“Five. Sam, please.”

“No!”

“Four. It’s Tommy, Sam, it’s Tommy, come on -”

“Tommy -”

“Three -”

“Stop -”

“Two. Breathe, Sam.”

“I can’t,” Sam chokes.

“One. Look at me, big man, one, one!”

Entire body snapping into focus, Sam jerks fully awake and slams his forehead directly into Tommy’s nose.

“Ow!” Tommy yells, catapulting backwards. “What the fuck!”

Sam would answer him, but he’s too busy coughing up air. With each desperate hack, he remembers a little bit more about reality.

“Some fuckin’ thanks,” Tommy whines, rubbing at his face with both hands. “Geezus.”

Sam pushes to his feet, straightening his hard hat with shaking hands. The sun is suddenly glaring far too bright in his eyes. Prime, what is he doing? What - what was he supposed to be doing?

“Sorry to interrupt your, uh,” Tommy gestures, frowning, “old person afternoon nap?”

“Something like that,” Sam says.

“I have the flowers.” Tommy pulls his backpack off. It’s full of bright red plants. Sam blinks; the color sears itself into the back of his eyelids. 

“Uh,” Sam tries, reaching behind his back for his voice mod. Shit. He’s really out of it. “Sorry. One second, I’ll be -”

“I had a question,” Tommy starts, clutching the pack of flowers to him, just out of reach. “For Sam. Normal Sam.”

“Oh.” Sam lets his hands fall. “Shoot.”

“What do you _want?_ ” Tommy asks after a beat, looking like he’s fighting back the urge to run. “I’m not stupid. Thirty-two diamonds isn’t near enough.”

Sam still feels a little stunned, but manages to force out a coherent enough answer. “Well, you’re right. But I’ve been having you do things to help out, to offset that. I don’t really need the money, either, you know? Your help is much more valuable.”

“Piss off,” Tommy hisses, more aggressive than Sam had picked up on. “Shut up with - with this, with all this! I’m not stupid. I’m not. It’s not enough.”

“It -”

“Just tell me, straight out.” Tommy’s stance is wide, shoulders drawn up to his ears like that will protect him. “Just tell me what you want.”

“I don’t want anything,” Sam says. He’s still reeling from his day-mare, whatever the fuck that had been about; these days, the Egg’s many fake, bloody scenes seem to always clash awfully in his head against Dream’s very real stories. Sam can almost see the maniac’s reflection in Tommy’s eyes. “I promise, Tommy, you’ve been more than helpful.”

Tommy growls, frustrated, shifting his weight from foot so restlessly he practically bounces. “You’re doing - you’re doing so much that I didn’t ask you to, like the fucking safety outfit, scaring away Jack Manifold, for Prime’s sake, I know when I’ve taken more than I -” Tommy pulls himself up short. His face contorts with a disgusted frown. 

“You don’t want money. You say I’ve helped you enough. What else do you want from me for it?” he asks, staring up at Sam with so much resignation it hurts.

Here’s the thing, Sam realizes - not only is Tommy letting this happen, he actively initiated it. Here’s the thing - Tommy is throwing himself into a situation in which he expects to get hurt. Sam knows as much. Dream’s been talking to him, recently, and Sam’s jaw aches from how hard he has to clench it shut. 

Here’s the thing. Tommy is not running away. He has dumped his shaking, shuddering last life into Sam’s hands, and yet he’s rooted to the spot with - with - 

Respect. 

This is how TommyInnit shows respect.

“Tommy,” Sam whispers. “Oh, Tommy.”

Tommy grinds his teeth together. “Sam.”

“What I want,” Sam says, stops, breathes so deep he almost starts coughing again. “I want you to be happy, Tommy.”

Tommy laughs.

“I know this hotel makes you happy,” Sam continues, “and Sam Nook makes you happy, and flower-picking makes you happy. The - the chores I send you on, you come back smiling, and - it’s not because I want something more from you. Not like I want to work you into the ground until you’ve earned your share.”

Tommy has stopped laughing. His knuckles are white around the bag of flowers, probably turning some of them into dye prematurely.

“You don’t have to believe me,” Sam says, thinking about Dream and all the times his monologues declare himself Tommy’s one and only friend. 

“I don’t,” Tommy says, blunt.

“Okay,” Sam says. “But I swear on my lives - on Fran - you are all that you need to be, in my book.”

Tommy seems frozen in place. He just breathes for a minute - Sam counts the seconds, doing his best to remember to breathe with him. 

“Here are your flowers,” Tommy eventually says, thrusting the bag out with stiff arms.

“Thank you,” Sam says, taking the pack. “Sorry for the inconvenience, by the way. Sam Nook will be back tomorrow.”

Tommy looks at him, wide-eyed and sixteen years old and somehow looking older than Sam’s ever felt. “Tell him - tell him if he’s having trouble - if he needs a break, he should take it.”

Sam cracks a smile. Of course Tommy sees right through him. It’s not exactly hard, but the sentiment is nice. “Will do, man. Stay safe.”

Tommy nods once. Twice. Makes to say something, but doesn’t, turning instead to lope down the path. Sam watches him go until he’s out of sight, then begins cleaning up the site for tomorrow’s workday.

And when he turns to sort through the flowers, Sam finds that he can no longer remember what his dream had been about.

**Author's Note:**

> If it’s not clear, in this work during his time with the Egg Sam underwent several visions/hallucinations in which the Egg attempted to force him to hurt others, which then bleed over into his nightmares/worries about Tommy. This is in reference to the newly rescued Sam saying “it made me do bad things,” which I guess was probably a reference to the. Eating his own flesh thing but this is my self indulgent fic and I get to choose the subtext


End file.
